Here is water.” Signaling a halt, Alejandro Delmar held up one hand and pointed to a flooded area with the other. “We will take a break. Fill your water bottles now.”
Groaning, Alex swung her backpack to the ground, then extracted the water bottle and filter. She put out a hand, about to rest her weight on a tree, then hastily withdrew her arm when she remembered the threat of ants and other stinging insects.
She was so tired her nerves throbbed. For five days they had trudged through the alternately rainy or steamy jungle without seeing a single sign of human life. For the first two days Alex had enjoyed talking to her companions—each expert on the team offered a different and interesting perspective on the wonders around them. By the third day, however, her body had grown weary and her tongue heavy. They ate little—mostly fish, monkey, and grubs, supplemented by portions of rice from Chavez’s pack of emergency provisions.
She did not need a scale to know she was rapidly losing weight— the lightweight slacks she had chosen for the trip now gaped at her waistline, and her pack rubbed against a bone at her hip that had not protruded when they left Yarupapa. Deprivation would affect everyone, but the others were not resisting a debilitating disease.
She tried to eat as much as possible at every meal, but she couldn’t ask for more without alerting the others to her declining condition. Most of the team members joked about the benefits of eating fish and jungle roots for a few days; Deborah Simons declared she’d come out of the jungle as slender as she’d been when she graduated from college. Duke Bancroft, who had been spending a lot of time with Deborah, kept insisting that he should have been the Navy SEAL represented on the Survivor TV show.
Alex was beginning to wonder if she’d have the strength to walk out of the jungle under her own power. The first stage of fatal familial insomnia usually lasted about four months, but in her weakened condition, who knew how long she could continue with relatively mild symptoms?
She let her backpack fall to the ground, then squatted on it, bracing her elbows on her knees. A seam of fatigue opened in her mind as she tried to formulate a prognosis.
Second-stage FFI, which usually lasted about five months, would add hallucinations and profuse sweating to panic attacks, faltering muscle movements, and increasing insomnia. The third stage, which usually continued for about three months, would bring total insomnia and neuroemaciation, or extreme weight loss. Compounded with the scant diet she’d been eating since their advent into the jungle, she would quickly waste away. The fourth and final stage, which could last as long as six months, would involve a total lack of motor control. Like her mother, she would become mute, she would lapse into a coma, and she would die. If her illness followed the typical course, she’d be dead within eighteen months.
Unless they found a cure among the members of the healing tribe.
She pressed the back of her sweaty hand to her forehead, then jumped when Delmar shouted. She looked up to see him kneeling a few feet away by the water’s edge. The others hurried forward; after a long moment, she summoned her energy and rose to join them.
Delmar had spread the grass from a patch of soft mud firmly stamped with a pair of footprints.
“Indian tracks,” he said softly, brushing a train of leaf-cutting ants away from the indentation.
Carlton shouldered his way to the front line of observers. “How can you tell?”
Tracing the mounded dirt with his fingertip, Delmar pointed to a gap between the first two toes. “There is a space here. This is a man who does not wear shoes.”
Bancroft pulled the GPS from his belt and squinted at the display. “We’re at 71.8 degrees longitude, 2.5 degrees latitude.” He grinned at Alex. “Getting closer to the Equator all the time.”
“And closer to Colombia,” Emma Whitmore added. “The border is the river called Putumayo.”
“This doesn’t look like much of a river.” Bancroft scanned the flooded land around them, then gave the group a sheepish grin. “As if I would know what constitutes a river in these parts.”
Olsson stepped forward, one hand tucked into the waistband of his trousers. “How do we know this footprint belongs to one of our healing Indians? If there’s a possibility this man belongs to some other tribe—”
“There are no other recorded tribes in this region.” Emma lifted her head to meet Olsson’s gaze. “Is it possible this is a hunter from a recognized tribe? Of course, but it’s highly unlikely. We haven’t seen a man-made trail in days.”
“I agree.” Delmar stood, one hand stroking his bare chin as he turned and stared into the underbrush. “This is a fresh footprint; the man who made it passed this way less than two hours ago. We will follow his trail, and I must ask you to walk single file behind me. Be quiet as you go, please, lest we frighten the others away.”
“The others?” Carlton lifted a brow. “How do you know there are others?”
Delmar’s square jaw tensed. “If there is one, there are others. And they will see us before we see them.”
Reflexively, Alex turned to look for her daughter. Caitlyn had spent the day walking with Deborah Simons, who had entertained her with stories of insect oddities. Now Simons’s face had gone sober. She caught Alex’s eye and nodded, silently acknowledging the shift in the prevailing mood.
Moving quickly, Alex knelt to let water flow through the filter into her water bottle, then stood and added a couple of chlorine tablets for good measure. After calling Caitlyn to her side, she positioned her daughter behind her, then hoisted her pack and prepared to face what she hoped would be the last leg of their journey.
“Will it be long now, Mom?”
“I hope not, honey.”
As Delmar led them out, Alex inhaled deep breaths, overcome by a mingling of hope and exhilaration.
They walked for twenty minutes through an area noisy with squawking parrots, then halted behind Delmar’s uplifted hand. As the group shuffled forward, the guide pointed to a patch of greenery through which Alex could see something black shining in the sun.
“Water.”
“Is it the Putumayo?” Carlton asked.
Delmar shook his head. “I think it is a lake. Our rivers are brown, not black.”
Alex wasn’t certain why black water had to be a lake, but she slipped an arm around Caitlyn’s shoulder and followed the others as Delmar led them into a clearing. The terrain had changed since they found the footprint, the tall trees giving way to shorter cousins, the empty ground filling with sprawling shrubs and brush. Delmar’s machete flashed rhythmically until the foliage bowed before him.
Upon reaching the water’s edge, the guide turned to Carlton. “From this place our native launched his canoe and moved out. He was not alone.” The guide pointed to the soft earth, where a series of footprints marked the sand. Alex could also see a smoothed trough that could have been made by the launching of a canoe.
Stepping into a patch of blazing sunlight, she gaped at an open expanse of black water filled with lily pads as big as beds. Delmar was right; they had reached a lake bordered by land on at least three sides. Directly across from where their group stood, however, a tree-covered knoll rose from the inky waters.
Emma Whitmore crossed one arm over her chest while her free hand absently plucked at a curl by her ear. “Is that an island?”
Delmar’s forehead creased. “That would explain many things. These people have remained secluded because they do not live on the river.”
Whitmore shook her head. “I don’t buy it. They may live on an island, but this lake wouldn’t have stopped them from reaching other tribes. Five days is not so great a distance.”
Carlton crossed his arms. “I thought all the bodies of water in these parts drained toward the sea.”
“Not all of them.” Delmar picked up a stick and traced a serpentine path on the muddy ground. “Each year the rivers in the forest bend on their way to the sea. The water constantly moves against the riverbanks, wearing away the curves and moving soil. Sometimes a sharp turn becomes so narrow the water cuts through the earth and leaves a bend behind. The water that remains in that place becomes a black-water lake. No current moves there, and the land does not dry out like the flooded fields. Strange animals live in black water. Maybe strange people live here, too.”
Squatting on the shore, Alex rested her chin on her closed hand and hoped the others would mistake her weariness for concentration.
“What sort of strange animals?” Deborah asked.
“Hoatzin birds,” Delmar answered. “Electric eels, caimans, and many kinds of fish.”
“I know about hoatzin birds.” Caitlyn’s voice sang over the adult rumbles like a piccolo in a brass band. “They have claws on their wings, so they can climb back into their nests if they fall into the water.”
Kenway laughed. “That’s fascinating, Cait.”
Alex closed her eyes. Did the man genuinely like Caitlyn, or was he merely trying to annoy her mother? For the past five days she and Kenway had managed to avoid confrontation by avoiding each other. Caitlyn, though, had followed the man like a shadow, her stuffed monkey swinging from her arm as she and the doctor chattered almost nonstop.
“So—how do we cross this lake?” Carlton asked. “Can we build some sort of canoe?”
Delmar grunted. “One canoe takes one week to build. Two canoes take two weeks. We would need two canoes.”
Bancroft stepped forward, a grin brightening his sweaty face. “I can build a raft out of logs and vines. Easy. If everyone pitches in, we can build two rafts tomorrow and cross to the island tomorrow night.”
“We cross when the sun is up, not in darkness,” Carlton insisted. “We will need to see what we are approaching. So let’s make camp for now, get some rest, and tackle the project tomorrow.”
Watching the black lake through narrowed eyes, Alex could only agree.